Download the audio version of this dollop here

Well I have not died. God did not smite me yesterday, although I did feel as if I’d had a heart attack when I turned on my computer.

After a two year dalliance with an apple mac (not like that you dirty animals), I’m now back to using windows more or less entirely. Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a blog exclusively for nerds. I haven’t used my mac for a couple of months, but I needed to turn it on in order to get some files off it.

A few seconds after switching the computer on, I got a huge shock. The mac, as if indignant at my betrayal, made a deafening sound. It was so loud that it caused the people I’m living with to wake up with a jolt.

This was not the first time that this had happened, although I’ve never experienced it at such high volume before. The sound was the generic Apple mac startup sound that occurs a few seconds after turning on. I think it remembers where your volume was set to the last time you used it and chimes accordingly. The last time I used the mac was during a gig, and the computer was connected to a mixing desk and set at the highest volume, hence its ferocity.

There is no way that I have found to circumvent this sound. Even if you plug headphones in the sound still plays through the speakers. If I forget to set the volume to a low level before shutting it down, then there is nothing that can be done about the loudness of the sound when it turns back on.

This is not the first time I have woken people up with the mac startup sound, nor am I the only person who’s experienced this. The Young’uns’ very own Michael Hughes has got into trouple off his girlfriend for turning on the computer in the middle of the night, unable to get to sleep, and waking the entire house up with the cursed apple startup sound. And once that button is pressed, nothing can help you. If you press the on button, then suddenly realise in horror that the laptop volume was set to high before you shut it down and is therefore about to seriously piss off your girlfriend, waking her and your neighbours down the street , there is nothing you can do to stop it. You are powerless. Frantically pressing volume down repeatedly is useless; the mac plays the sound just as loud as it deems fit. Plugging headphones in won’t help you. The mac doesn’t give a toss; it will chime loudly through the speakers regardless. It may even chime through the headphones as well, meaning that if you’re wearing them when it chimes, you are likely to scream out loud with the shock of hearing such an ear-splitting noise, directly fed into your ears. the There isn’t enough time to run out of the room with the laptop, hoping to get far enough away from sleeping people. You have about two seconds til the hideously loud noise begins. The battery packs on the mac are completely covered over, so you can’t even yank the battery out. And don’t go thinking that holding down the off key immediately after switching it on is going to help, because it won’t. All that happens then is the sound plays, your girlfriend wakes up, the mac then powers down, your girlfriend slaps you, and you’re back at square one. If you really need to use the computer then you have no choice but to power it back on again and let the chimes of doom seal the deal on your breakup once and for all.

I don’t know whether I have any readers who work has spies, but if I have then presumably they’re doing their job reasonably well given that I don’t know. I would imagine one of the first things you learn in spy school is not to use an apple mac computer, or at least not if you’re planning on needing the use of the computer while you’re hiding from the enemy.

“OK, we’ve managed to smuggle ourselves under the cover of darkness into the enemy’s headquarters.”

“I know, I can’t believe it. The place had cameras everywhere. Then there was that crazy alarm system with the 3000 digit code which you managed to somehow know and enter correctly, while all the while being chased by that giant killer robot. Butt Then, when we were caught by those armed security guards I really thought our game was up. But then you pulled it out of the back again. Managed somehow to seduce every single one of them, convince them to partake in bondage, tied them up and shot them all, well that was out-of-this-world, and the sex was pretty good too. And then just as I thought we’d finally made it, we were presented with another control panel and somehow you managed to guess the 14000 digit code. And hear we are. Now what do we do boss?”

“When you’re in this game son, you’ve got to think of everything. Codes, alarms, security guards, killer robots disguised as harmless looking teapots … I’ve seen it all before.”

“Ah, I wondered why you went crazy earlier on when you saw that old teapot. I thought it was a bit unusual when you opened fire on it. But I didn’t want to say anything at the time. It didn’t seem appropriate, plus you had that look in your eyes.”

“Well son, when you’ve been a spy as long as I have you learn to trust nothing, especially teapots. Although on this occasion it did turn out to be just a tea pot. Antique, Chinese, one of the few surviving tea pots from the Chinese Qing Dynasty during the Qianlong period, circa 1736 to 1795. A shame to have riddled it with bullet holes, as it would have fetched quite a bit at auction. Or I could have taken it home and gave it to the wife.

“Anyway, I can’t sit here under the floorboards of the enemy’s headquarters chatting about antique tea pots all day. There’s work to be done. All I need to do now is log in to their mainframe, which will be a piece of cake. I can’t believe they thought I wouldn’t see through that disguise. Hiding your mainframe computer inside a piece of cake: why it’s one of the oldest tricks in the book. Once I’ve hacked into the mainframe, I’ll shut them down for ever, and we’ll have a slice of cake to celebrate. A shame I got rid of the tea pot, we could have had some tea with it too. I’ve got some lovely chamomile teabags in my pocket. Calms the nerves. You need something to calm you down after a hard day’s work sexing armed guards and smashing up antique robots.

“Victory is in sight my friend. Thirty years of my life I’ve waited for this moment. Thirty years of work, and now finally … finally. All I need to do is turn on the computer, enter the 75000 digit code, which fortunately I had the foresight to copy to the clipboard for convenience, and then watch their evil empire crumble.

“I must admit, when my bosses told me that I had to take the work experience boy with me on this mission, I was, quite frankly, livid. I thought having you here would ruin everything, but you’ve done good boy, you’ve done real good. Anyway, this is the end. Turn on the computer son.”

“OK boss. Here goes.”

“Hang on, is that a mac? You brought the mac? You idiot. Don’t turn it … Shit! Shit, shit shit!” Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang!!!!!!!! Discovered. Dead. End of story.

Then again, I can’t imagine a windows computer doing any better in a planet saving mission.

“All I need to do is type in the code and take out the enemy’s weapons system. Yes! Got it, now I just need to press enter and the world will be saved. Oh no, what’s this? “Windows has encountered a problem and needs to close.” I’m trying to save the world. I was just seconds away. “Do you want to send a problem report to Microsoft? This will help us fix this and similar problems in the future.” There is no future Microsoft, there is no future! We’re all doomed … What? Hang on, what’s happening? Why aren’t we dead? Oh, it turns out that our enemy was using Apple Maps to locate us, and they’ve had their lazors pointing in completely the wrong direction. They’ve just blown themselves up. Brilliant. Disaster overted. Well, I might restart this computer and have a cheeky game of spider solitaire.”

Well, there you go friends. Two gripping dramas in one blog post, as yet uncommissioned, but you never know who might be reading this. As you can tell, nothing much is happening in my life at the moment. The Young’uns don’t have a gig until February, and I haven’t really been out much this week, hence why my blog posts have become less about me and more about killer tea pots and planet saving spies. Whether that’s a bad thing or not I don’t know. Feel free to leave a comment. I feel that this project is working well, but perhaps I’m too deeply entrenched in it to properly know. Thanks for reading anyway. Back tomorrow.

Download the audio version of this dollop here

Our toilet broke yesterday. I’ve a feeling that God or mother nature is sending me a warning about my choice of toilet paper. Fortunately though, after a bit of prodding about in the Cistern the problem was fixed. I’m really not sure what God/mother nature expects me to do. I’ve bought the planet destroying toilet paper now, so surely I might as well use it. Surely you should be focusing your wrath on the people who produce the paper, rather than one individual consumer. But if you think I should throw the remainder of the toilet paper in the bin rather than use it then that’s what I’ll do, but you could at least tell me in a more civilised way like leaving a comment on my blog, rather than breaking our toilet. But I suppose that would be too obvious and sensible for God, who’s got to live up to his reputation of working in mysterious ways, although I think leaving a comment on a folk singers blog is pretty weird and mysterious too.

Our shower has started leaking through the roof a bit as well, and I’m a little worried now that this blog post will scupper our abilities to claim on the insurance should anything go wrong. After all, this blog post could be seen as an admission that the problems occurred due to an act of God, who is smiting me through the medium of plumbing problems due to my reckless toilet paper consumption.

What a strange term that is: act of God. I’d love to hear the phone conversation between Richard Dawkins and his insurance company after his house has been flooded.

“I’m sorry Mr Dawkins, I’m afraid we won’t be paying out.”

“You what? What do you mean you won’t be paying out? But this is ridiculous!”

“If you’d just calm down Mr Dawkins. I’m trying to explain …”

“Calm down?! Calm down?! Listen, I pay the premium rate? I am fully covered. I’m covered for everything! So what do you mean you can’t pay out? What possible reason …

“Please MR Dawkins, calm down and I’ll … Oh, hang on, Mr Dawkins, as in … Oh dear, I’m afraid you’re not going to like this sir.”

“What?”

“You’re really not going to like this. I’m afraid we can’t pay out because … There’s no easy way of telling you this but …”

“What? Come on you insufferable buffoon, spit it out man! What is it?!”

“Well … the thing is Mr dawkins … it was .. er … it was … oh, now … this is somewhat ironic you might say.”

“What the bloody hell are you jabbering on about. Just get on with it!”

“It was … an, act, of, God. It was an act of God Mr Dawkins. Mr dawkins, Mr Dawkins? Mr Dawkins? Are you OK?””

I am also a non-believer, but I haven’t approached my non-belief in God with anywhere near the vociferousness that dawkins has. I’d be damned to hell making no fuss if God would grant me just one wish before I go, which would be to see the moment that Dawkins discovers that he was wrong all this time and that there was a God after all, who is standing over him on the day of judgement laughing uncontrolably, except obviously he would technically be able to control the laughter because he’s all-powerful, but there’s no need to be pedantic.

“Oh we’ve been so looking forward to this moment, haven’t we Peter?”

“How many times Jesus, it’s Simon.”

“Whatever Peter. And how many times Peter? It’s Yeshua. My dad and I had so much fun watching you on the phone to that insurance company Richard. We wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Well technically it would be impossible for my dad to have missed it, given that he’s omnipresent, although, at the same time I suppose it would be possible for him to have missed it in spite of his omnipresence because he’s all-powerful, so if he’d have wanted to have missed it then he must have the power to do so. Oh I don’t know, it’s all very confusing this omnipotence omnipresence malarkey. My dad’s tried to explain it to me thousands of times, and I still don’t get it. To be honest, I’m not even sure he really gets it, although, I suppose he must because he’s all-knowing. Anyway, the point is that we all exist Richard. Me, my dad, AKA God, my mother, the virgin Mary, who’s still a virgin after all these years, although Jeremy Kyle tried to do a lie detector and DNA test when he got to the Pearly Gates. Needless to say we damned him to hell. I bet you feel like a bit of a dick now don’t you. That’s a joke Richard because Dick is short for Richard. Oh yes, Yeshua has a sense of humour you know. I think I get it from my dad. He loves a good joke. Well, take the old testament, absolutely hilarious. We still have a good laugh at the poor sods down there trying to make sense of it, although some people do spoil the joke slightly by killing people because of it.”

“But … but … but … How was I to know? Believing in you and your dad would have been completely irrational?”

“Irrational? It’s not like we didn’t leave clues for you Richard. Remember that slice of toast?”

“The what?”

“That slice of toast in February 2011? We manifested an impression of my mother, the virgin Mary in the bread. You took one look at it, made some snide comment about it being a coincidence and ate it. We don’t leave those toast clues for everyone you know Richard. Some people don’t get any visions in their toast, yet they still believe. Happy are those that have not seen the face of a virgin in their breakfast, yet still believe?”

Although I don’t believe in God, to be fair he has had some pretty nifty ideas, such as his philosophy on work, which I could have done with taking on board before I launched into this 365 consecutive days of blogging nonsense. Even God felt he needed a day off once a week. What hubris overcame me to think that I could go one better than God and keep going for seven days solid without rest. If God needs a rest, surely I should factor in a day of rest too. You may argue that god created an entire planet in six days, whereas I have merely done six days of blogging, and to compare those two things in the same light is utterly ridiculous. But let me say this to you: have you ever done six consecutive daily blog posts? Exactly, so shut up. Oh you do rile me sometimes. In fact, I’ve now done seven days of consecutive blog posts, and I’ll be back tomorrow for Dollop eight, providing God hasn’t smited me with a death-inducing plumbing disaster.

My brother has released a couple of tracks on his Bandcamp page. We had fun over Christmas working on parts of it together. If you fancy, take a listen here.

Download the audio version of this dollop here

The virgin pulp saga continued throughout the rest of yesterday. Richard read yesterday’s startling blog post and commented to say: “I pass a wig shop (yes, they exist apparently) on the way into work each day. It has a sign advertising Brazilian Virgin Hair. How come the Brazilians can farm their virgins economically while we use them as an industrial feedstock?”

The plot thickens, I thought, and sent a comment back to Richard: “This is the kind of information we need Richard. Every tip off we can get is useful and might hold the key to discovering why virgins are being used in such ways. Perhaps the virgins’ flesh and bones are only pulped for toilet paper, while their hair is used for wigs, or maybe the two things are completely separate and the virgin hair wigs enterprise is completely ethical. Either way, thanks for the insight. We will get to the bottom of this, no pun intended, unless you thought it was significantly funny enough, in which case I’ll claim it as intentional.”

But then, I had an incredible thought. It was a moment of inspiration, brilliant in
Its simplicity. I decided to Google virgin pulp.

OK, panic over. It turns out that toilet paper made from virgin pulp is not actually made from pulped up human virgins, but simply means that the paper has been made from freshly cut pulped up trees rather than a recycled pulp. Apparently virgin pulp toilet paper is smoother and yields a nicer bottom wiping experience, although it is more environmentally unfriendly than recycled pulp paper.

In fairness, I didn’t buy the paper, my housemates did, but now that I know the environmental facts I will change to a less bottom friendly but more environmentally sound option. After all, what use is a soft smooth bottom when Armageddon comes? “Oh well, the bad news is I sped up the apocalyps but at least I enjoyed soft smooth bottom wipes when I was alive, although I’m not enjoying that my bottom, along with the rest of me, is now being fried to a crisp.”

Unfortunately, we’ve got quite a lot of this paper left, and it would be even more environmentally unfriendly to throw the virgin pulp paper away in order to buy more ecologically sound paper, and so I’m going to have to continue using it for a while yet, but be assured that I will not enjoy the experience. Its soft silky smoothness will cut like a knife.

Anyway, the good news is that the virgins are safe. The other good news is that Anonymous have not shut me down for my repeated mention of the word Isis, although apparently anonymous also have tabs on the Church Of The flying Spaghetti Monster, who apparently are planning some major escapades in the near future, so perhaps I’m merely on borrowed time. I’ve just realised if this is the first digital dollop you’ve read then none of this post is going to make much sense to you.

The other good news is that I’m now over a 73rd of the way through this project. I only have to do this amount of blogging and podcasting 72 more times and I’ve achieved a year of consecutive daily posts. So, as you can imagine I’m pretty buoyed by that. The end is in sight my friends. I might even have a celebratory Armageddon-inducing arse wipe to toast my success.

So far, all my blog posts have been over one thousand words long. It’s likely therefore that by the end of the year I will have written about 400000 words. According to Wikipedia, novels tend to be between 100000 and 170000 words, meaning that I will have enough for four novels. What the hell am I doing giving this away for free? Sod the Internet, I’m going to write a blog post a day and then release it in book form, on paper made from virgin pulp, because I wouldn’t want my readers getting unnecessary paper cuts, plus when you’ve read it you can use it as toilet paper, so actually in a way I’d be saving the planet.

After the climax of Harry Potter (by which I mean the end of the Harry Potter series, just in case you were concerned that I was going to launch into some self-penned pornographic Potter fan-fiction) J. K. Rowling released some books under a pseudonym because she wanted the work to be judged on its own merit rather than snapped up by millions and lorded as the greatest thing, simply because she wrote it. Then, when the books weren’t doing too well and failing to garner attention, she let slip that the books were written by her, and the sales went crazy. If I can think of a way of kidnapping J. K. Rowling and forcing her to claim that my novels of dollops are hers, then I’ll be a millionaire in a couple of years. Even better if I can get her to release them as Harry Potter books. Just imagine: Harry Potter and the Church Of The Giant Spaghetti Monster; Harry Potter and the Virgin Pulp (although admittedly that does sound like the title of some Potter inspired pornographic writing). As you can tell, I’ve thought it all through. But alas my ego is too large to allow J. K. Rowling to take the credit for my works of genius, so I’ll just continue putting this out for free on the Internet for the occasional like and comment from social media, because I am a needy egotist who will consequently always be poor.

Fear not, this J. K. Rowling kidnapping plan is merely hypothetical. No authors were harmed during the making of this blog. Not yet anyway, but there’s no knowing what the future might hold.

Download the audio version of this blog post here

I know that the news is grim enough right now: floods, junior doctors strikes, Isis … Note to anyone from the hacking group Anonymous who might have stumbled across this website on the basis of my one mention of Isis – oops, that’s two mentions now. I know you’ve been a bit trigger happy with your attack, shutting down perfectly innocent non-isis related websites (damn, three mentions), just because they happen to mention the word Isis (shit!) on their pages, including some of the BBC news pages. But, just because I’ve mentioned Isis four times (bugger! five times) in quick succession, I want you to know that I am just a simple folk singer with a blog, so don’t mistakenly shut me down. On second thoughts, yes, shut me down, and then I’ll have an excuse not to continue with this crazy daily blog nonsense, and I can live a life again. Yes, shut me down, please shut me down! Isis Isis Isis Isis Isis Isis Isis Isis Isis Isis Isis Isis Isis Isis Isis Isis Isis Isis Isis Isis Isis Isis Isis Isis Isis. Please shut me down Anonymous, and save me from this torture.

No, I’m joking, I’m actually enjoying myself, even if no one else might be. Seriously though, please do not shut me down because this blog post is actually very important and could save millions of lives.

So with all this bleakness in the world, I feel guilty about adding to it, but at the same time I am aware of my responsibilities as a citizen of planet earth. I was planning on writing a cheery blog about something funny that happened to me seven years ago that I pretended happened to me today, because “a funny thing happened to me once, well, actually it happened to my friend” isn’t quite the same, is it? But then I made a terrible discovery which shook me to the core. I knew instantly that it was my duty to notify you all, since seemingly no one else has noticed this disgraceful human abomination.

Firstly, if you are a virgin, live with a virgin, or know a virgin, then you need to take precautions immediately. A plea to all virgins: Do Not Leave The House, baton down the hatches (if you have any, otherwise just lock your windows and doors). I’ll explain all in this blog post.

Since I’ve started this daily blogging lark, my mind has been a lot more active in observing everything, no matter how small, just in case something gives me inspiration for a blog post. Something seemingly incidental, insignificant, tiny or pithy can end up becoming the catalyst for pages of ideas. So, today I was absent-mindedly studying the toilet role packet while on the toilet. It was then that I noticed it. But there was nothing incidental, insignificant, tiny or pithy about this observation, in fact, it was horrifying. I read it, gasped, read it again, gasped again, felt a queasiness come over me. The shock was so great that it caused me to defecate, but fortunately I was on the toilet so that wasn’t particularly an issue. It was one line, four words, written in an innocuous font, in small writing. And this, my friends, is what I read.

“Made from virgin pulp.”

I know. I imagine you too are feeling the same sickening revulsion that I felt when I first read those words. How long has this been going on? Who is responsible? Why would someone want to pulp a virgin into toilet paper? Why would they even advertise the fact? So many questions racing through my mind.

I knew I needed to act, and fast. Maybe this was just a nascent enterprise. Maybe I was one of the first people to buy one of these toilet roles. Maybe someone working in the package printing department of the toilet role company had acted as a whistle blower, risking their life to raise the alarm. For all I know, this might be the one and only warning packet that they managed to successfully print and ship before they were found out and eliminated.

So many questions kept rattling through my brain: why virgins? How did they source the virgins? Does it matter how old the virgins are? Is it both male and female virgins? Are children exempt? But these were questions that would have to wait. The only question that was important right now was what am I going to do about it?

Well the first thing was to get off the toilet, but there was a certain task that needed to be taken care of first. I felt sick as I wiped my backside. Which poor pulped up virgin was I wiping my backside on? I wondered. I flushed the toilet and washed my hands; hygiene is still important, even in such a crisis as this, in fact, it took on a greater pertinence on this occasion as I felt that I had blood on my hands, virgins’ blood. As I abluted, I mused darkly on how I might be able to wash away the physical matter, but I will never be able to wash away the memory of this moment, for this revelation would sully me for life.

In a panic I did the first thing that came to mind. I turned on my laptop, opened a blank word document and began to feverishly type. The blog you are reading now is the result of that typing frenzy. It may be badly structured and poorly written, but I just needed to get something down and uploaded to the website. I know the blog posts’ introduction may have seemed a bit banal, given the terrible subject that this blog contains, but I think when I first started typing I was in such huge shock that my brain temporarily stopped functioning properly, and I just started writing trite drivel. But I don’t have time to edit. Every second I waste on redacting might potentially be costing more virgins’ lives. I must go and upload this blog post now and get the news out there. Then we can decide how to go forward from here…

I’ll be back tomorrow with hopefully more information. Who knows what news the new day may bring. In the meantime, stay safe, especially if you’re a virgin. Oh, and check your toilet role packets. Together we can stop this !!

Download the audio version of this blog post here

This blog post is clean as a whistle. Absolutely no swearing. Completely granny friendly, in fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s nun friendly, so feel free to tell any nuns you know about this.

I’ve written in a previous blog post about my scheme for taxi companies, whereby passengers and taxi drivers can be matched based on certain criterion. When you call the taxi company you will be asked a series of questions about your taxi driver preference. This would avoid any awkward conversations with some of the more right-wing or bigoted taxi drivers out there, unless you were a bigot yourself, in which case you could cheerily notify the operator that you’d prefer a straight down the line, no-nonsense, spade’s-a-spade, sun / daily mail reader.

“I’m an avid Sun reader. I have a poster of Donald Trump on my wall, and I believe that all Muslims should be sent home. Oh, and I’m also partial to a spot of gardening.”

“We’ve got the perfect driver match for you sir. We’ll get her to pick you up right away.”

“Hang about. A woman? A woman driver? I don’t think so my friend. I’d rather be driven by a lefty, or even a gay, or even a gay lefty. A woman indeed. I shall take my custom elsewhere!”

The driver I had today would have been unlikely to have driven me if this matching system was in place.

“Do you like football mate?” he asked.

“Not really,” I responded. I told him that I used to go to Hartlepool matches when I was younger, but lost interest when I left for uni. This was far from the conversation killer that you might expect. He started attempting a discourse about Hartlepool united in the early 2000s. It quickly became apparent that, despite living in Sheffield and being a life long Sheffield United supporter, he knew a great deal more about my local team than I did. I knew enough to join in, but it was clear that he was an oracle of knowledge when it came to football.

After we’d exhausted all my knowledge of early naughties Hartlepool United, he continued through the decade up until present day, by which point I was completely lost.

However, fortunately I have had experience of having to busk football chat. Even if you barely have any knowledge on the subject, there are certain tricks of the trade that I have discovered in order to hold a convincing conversation with a football fan. Firstly, it relies on the fact that, as a rule, most football obsessives have enough knowledge themselves to carry you through the conversation. They have opinions, stats and cliches enough to carry you both through. Your job is to take a passive role. As you get more experienced, you can start to stretch yourself a bit and take a few chances. But, for the novice, stick to these basic tenets and you shouldn’t go wrong.

“What about that Ronnie Moore, eh?”

Ronnie Moore is the current Hartlepool manager, although, I didn’t know this at the time.

“Aye, tell me about it.” I thought that this was quite a good response. It kept the options open, and didn’t tether me to a particular viewpoint, but it had the bonus of sounding like a confident statement. I kept the tone of my statement neutral, so that my “tell me about it” could be attached to a number of possible meanings. If this Ronnie Moore was an asset to the team, then my “tell me about it” would be perceived as an positive agreement. If he was bad news then similarly my “tell me about it” would be interpreted as a negative response. Once I had gauged his reaction to my “tell me about it,” I could follow it up with an appropriate response: a weary sigh, an enthusiastic nod, or even – and this is where my tactic shows its true genius – another “tell me about it,” only this time I can add some emotion to the phrase, suggesting that he had just essentially corroborated my point entirely. Four simple words, yet they offer so much flexibility.

I was proving really good at this football chat blagging shtick, and I was starting to enjoy myself. He proceeded to bat rhetorical question after spurious statement at me, and I think I returned serve admirably.

“He was asking for it though, wasn’t he?” To be honest, I’m not even listening properly. We’ve been chatting now for nearly ten minutes. I don’t even know who he’s talking about now. I think we’ve moved on to a completely different team, but it doesn’t matter, I am skilled in the art of busking football chat.

“Completely asking for it,” I retorted. Our exchange had been going on for some time now, and I was feeling so confident at my ability that I’d stopped even paying attention to the content of his words. I decided to take my blagging routine to the next level. I was feeling a bit adventurous, so I thought I’d be extra cocky and added, “anyone could see it mate, I mean, seriously, what did he expect?”

Had I gone too far? Did this even work within the context of what he was talking about? I didn’t even know who was asking for it, why he was asking for it, or what he was asking for, but I’d started getting bored by the ease of blagging, and wanted to give myself a bit of a challenge. Plus, if what I’d said caused controversy and rankled him, or didn’t actually make any sense, I could simply shrug my shoulders dramatically, laugh derisively, shake my head vigorously and explain that I’d over heard some buffoon in the pub yesterday spouting nonsense on this very subject, and that was the very idiotic phrase that he had come out with. Thus, the potential awkwardness would have been evaded, and we could both be united in laughing at the moron who’d come out with that absurd statement. But I surmised that if he was asking for it, which he apparently was, then my follow up, suggesting that he was an idiot for thinking he could get away with it, certainly had the potential to work as a response. Plus, I was no novice at this game, by which I mean the football chat blagging game, whereas I am a complete novice when it comes to football knowledge.

It was a few years back when I first stumbled upon the football chat blagging challenge. I was in a pub with some friends, and they’d all gone to the bar to get drinks, so I was momentarily sitting alone. The man on another table was seemingly in a similar situation, as his friends had also temporarily left him. There was a big screen above us showing a football match. The crowd on the TV grew louder and more excited. The man turned to me, assuming that I was also watching the game, and said, “surely he can’t miss this.”

“Surely not,” I responded emphatically. And sure enough, we were both right, even if one of us didn’t know why we were right. The player scored.

“Yes! Goal! Finally,” he shouted, still addressing me. I realised that I needed to respond. There was only him and me here, and we’d started bonding over the football, even though I was just being polite and pretending to care or know what he was talking about. But I was in too deep now to tell him that I didn’t know anything about football. What would be the point anyway? Our separate sets of friends would be back soon, so why ruin this nice brief moment between two strangers.

“About bloody time mate,” I said.

“Too right mate, too right.”

I felt a positive surge of energy jet through my brain. I felt powerful, I felt knowledgable, and I felt a sense of comradery with this man. We had bonded over football, and I had passed the experience with flying colours, even though I didn’t have a clue about football, and, being blind, had no idea what was happening on the screen.

Since that time I have had several more experiences like this, and each time I have busked football chat, and done it impeccably.

There was one time when a man turned to me after someone had just missed a sitter, and shouted to me above the noise of the crowd from the TV, “How did he miss that?”

“Bloody typical mate,” I retorted, quick as a flash, no messing about. I felt as if I’d mastered the art now.

“What?” asked the man. I assumed he just hadn’t heard me and so I repeated.

“Bloody typical mate.”

But the man had seemingly heard me. His “what” had been an expression of uncertainty as to the efficacy of my statement. I was taken aback. I felt that “bloody typical” was a fairly innocuous response, given that this player had apparently just missed a sitter. Perhaps I needed to re-evaluate my abilities as a football chat blagger.

“What do you mean, bloody typical? He’s the most prolific goal scorer in the league?”

Ah, so that’s where the confusion had come from. No problem. This was surely easily remedied.

“Exactly mate. Bloody typical. The league’s best goal scorer, and he misses a sitter like that. Bloody typical. If he’d had a load of players around him, kicking at his ankles he’d have bloody put it in the back of the net. Bloody typical.”

“Exactly mate, good point, exactly. Bloody typical,” came the response. I felt the positive chemical surge in my brain. I’d found my sport.

Back in the taxi, I awaited the driver’s reaction to my cocky declaration that “he” (whoever he was) was a fool if he thought he could get away with “it” (whatever it was).

“Too right mate, too right. Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

My goodness, I was a master at this. I felt a tinge of sadness when, at that moment, I arrived at my destination. I was really starting to enjoy myself, and we were both clearly getting on very well, even though I had no idea what either of us were talking about.

If my taxi driver/passenger matching scheme had been in operation then me and this driver would have never taken this journey together, and I might never have learnt the valuable lesson that it is sometimes fun and spiritually beneficial to chat with people who, on the surface, you might not have much in common with. Surely we are in danger of stunting our emotional growth if we only communicate with people we know we’ll agree with. So, next time I am picked up by the Trump-loving, anti-Islam, Daily Mail / Sun reading driver, I will try and find some common ground. I shall welcome him into my life with open arms, although perhaps not literally, as he’s also homophobic, so that gesture would backfire. However, I draw the line at gardeners. And women drivers.

Download the audio version of tthis blog post here”

Today’s blog post does not contain swearing, apart from the word bastards, but come on, that doesn’t count, lighten up granny.

Yesterday, the people I’m living with and some other friends went out for the day, but I decided not to join them as I wanted to put the finishing touches to yesterday’s blog post, read the blog out for the podcast and upload it to my website. There is a certain irony in the fact that I plan to write about my life for 365 consecutive days, yet in order to do so I am declining offers to go out and actually do anything interesting. My efforts to constantly talk about my life mean that I might be running the risk of not living one.

So, today I was asked whether I wanted to go for a walk and for some lunch with some friends, and I decided to partake, although, I only did so because I thought something interesting might happen that I could blog about. I am writing this blog post in the car on the way to the place we’re heading to, while keeping one ear open for anything interesting that one of my friends might say which can be appropriated for today’s blog. So far they have given me nothing, the bastards.

Today’s blog post was meant to be the story I originally intended to tell yesterday, before getting sidetracked and writing nearly 2000 words about something else. However, I think I will save that story for another day, because part of the story hinges around the topic of cancer. I’m aware that many of you are probably heading back to work tomorrow after the Christmas holidays, and so perhaps a lengthy blog post which might be quite heavy going in places may not be fitting. I’m a little concerned that my last two blog posts have been quite sweary and included quite a few adult jokes, and the story I originally intended to tell today would have probably needed to have also followed that route. So I’ll come back to that story at some point, and for now, here’s a blog post for the whole family to enjoy. So, gather your children around you, tell your mother-in-law to stop watching Songs Of Praise and get a load of this instead.

My friend Emily, sitting next to me in the car, has just read a news article to me which has given me inspiration for a blog post. So, in a change to our advertised programming, here’s today’s blog post, which centres around a story from the BBC news website.

New Zealand has given approval to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster to carry out marriage ceremonies in the country.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I had no idea that there was a Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. So, intrigued, I decided to conduct some research for this blog. You might be under the impression that this blog is essentially a one man operation, simply comprising a singular deluded self-aggrandising ego, but actually I have a whole team of people behind me, including a state-of-the-art research department, so it wasn’t long before I was put in contact with someone from the Church of the flying Spaghetti Monster. The person I spoke to was happy to talk, but didn’t want to be identified.

“Our pasta is delighted, and can’t wait to conduct his first ceremony,” said the unidentified sauce.

Unfortunately, that’s all the interview I got, as there was a glitch with the Church of The Flying Spaghetti Monster’s video conferencing technology. The picture went black and they stopped seeing me too. However, the audio hung in there for a little longer before cutting out, so I heard a few seconds of conversation between two Church of the Flying spaghetti members, before the line went completely dead.

“damn, the bloody Tagliatelly is on the blink again. Basil, Olive, can one of you fix this thing?”

“I’m afraid you won’t get anything out of Basil or Olive. Have you not heard the news about Basil?”

“No. What?”

“It turns out he wasn’t one of us after all. He was a spy for the Church of the romping Ravioli Dragon.”

“What?! The Church of the Romping Ravioli Dragon?! But everyone knows that that church is based on completely fabricated nonsensical flimflam.”

“I know, but some people will believe any old claptrap won’t they?”

“Very true. But I can’t believe that all that time, he was spying for them! I mean, Basil, a plant, who’d have thought it?”

“I know, I certainly didn’t see that coming.” Which is more than can be said for that punchline. “So Basil’s unable to fix your TV, and I’m afraid Olive says she’s too ill to do anything today.”

“Ill? She’ll be stoned, no doubt, as usual.”

“What about Betty? She’s good with technology. She’s a very clever girl. She got all A’s in her exams.”

“I know, well they don’t call her Alpha Betty for nothing.”

Unfortunately, the audio began to badly crackle and glitch. The last thing I heard before I lost them completely was, “I think we’re running out of electricity. Try putting a penne in the meter.” And then the line went dead, which I’m sure you’re all immensely sad about.

So, there you go, that’s today’s blog post. It was going to be another sweary and potentially offensive blog post, but I bottled it and opted to do a load of spaghetti-based puns instead. Still, let’s be honest, it beat watching Songs of Prays didn’t it mother-in-law? You wouldn’t get Aled Jones riffing on a news story about spaghetti. In fact, if the BBC want Songs of Praise to be more popular, they should ditch Christianity and broadcast live from the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster instead. The ratings would go through the roof. If we all bombard Points Of View, they will have to take heed.

Thanks for reading and listening. Feel free to leave a comment, either telling me that I’ve made a big mistake with this ridiculous project, or to deluge me with additional pasta puns. Only 363 posts to go, my friends. Are we still friends? Back tomorrow, regardless.

Today’s blog post contains swearing.

You can download the audio podcast version of this blog post here.

After our Christmas gig in Otley , we went to the pub with a few friends, including the organiser of the gig. There was a bit of an incident the last time we went to the pub with this particular person, who from now on will be referred to as Rob for brevity’s sake, and also because Rob happens to be Rob’s name, so that seems to make sense. If you’re confused at this point, then perhaps this blog isn’t really for you.

Last time we went to the pub with Rob was April this year, just after our first gig on the spring tour. Rob enthusiastically declared that this particular pub was really good,and that the landlord was “a bit of a character.”

As soon as we crossed the threshold, we were effusively greeted by said “character”: a big, burly, brash bloke with a bellowing broad Scottish voice.

“Rob!” he roared, leaping to his feet, as quickly as a heavily inebriated, heavily built landlord could ever be expected to leap. Let’s just say that I think this particular landlord cared so much about the quality of his beer that he insisted on sampling each one in turn just to be sure, and pint-sized samples, just to be especially certain, before repeating the cycle several times throughout the day, because in this game it pays to be constantly vigilant. The landlord grabbed Rob, enveloping him in his considerable mass.

“How are you, ‘me old fucker?” he shouted. Perhaps this was his little play on words, a slight Scottish modification of the more well-known cockney “’me old mucker”, unless the landlord had just let slip some personal information about his and Rob’s relationship. It seemed too obtrusive a question to pose at that moment, plus Rob had enough to deal with right now, as the landlord was thumping him hard on the back. Rob maintains that this was his way of showing affection, and perhaps this was yet another telling indication of the type of relationship he and Rob were enjoying. We’d just come to the pub after a gig for a social drink with some friends, and now we were witnessing a potential homoerotic sadomasochist display. But Rob maintains that the “’me old fucker” line and the pummelling was merely what goes for a friendly welcome in this landlord’s world. Fair enough, I suppose, who am I to argue? Well, I’d be an idiot to start an argument with this man, given that he appears to show affection to his friends by thumping; goodness knows what he’d do to you if he didn’t like you.

“Where’ve you been the last few months, you little cunt?” the landlord barked. “Anyway, you’re very welcome, you’re all very welcome.” Ah, so we’re all welcome, I thought. I felt that this had been a little unclear up until that point, what with the thumping and the verbal insults. At first I wasn’t sure whether Rob was coming under a hostile attack, but it turns out that the landlord seemed to follow the same philosophy of certain dog owners, whereby their dog jumps up at you, claws you in the eyes and barks menacingly at you while the owners gleefully inform you that “he’s just being friendly, he’s very affectionate.”

Despite my relief, I was also a little concerned that if we were all “very welcome,” then we too might soon fall victim to his “affections”. I decided that now was a good time to escape to the toilet, and left the others to the mercy of our intriguing host.

But no sooner had I turned to walk off, I was accosted by a lady, about my age, who enthusiastically intoned how much she’d enjoyed the gig and congratulated me on the Folk Award win. How easily distracted. I’d completely forgotten my intention to escape from the potentially dangerous landlord. My instinctive urge to flee the possible danger had instantly been replaced by my instinctive response towards a bit of flattery from a female. Damn, she was probably working for him. She’d spotted my attempts to make a break and had sought to thwart my efforts, and she had succeeded. Granted, she’d known about the gig, and the Folk Award, so this was an unlikely theory, but when you’re on the run from a potentially psycopathic landlord you can’t afford to be negligent.

It was too late to correct my course, for the landlord had heard the girl’s comments and promptly turned to address me.

“You’ve won a Folk award?” he bellowed. In his voice it sounded like a threat, as if the very thought of having the winner of some poncey award in his pub was highly egregious to him. He drew his mass towards me, and before I could do anything to stop it he was upon me.

“Fuck me, you fucking clever cunt,” he boomed, and pulled me into a bear hug. Then the thumping began.

There was an attractive girl stood just a couple of metres away. In one of the alternate universes – that apparently have to exist in order to support most of the currently accepted quantum physical theories about the nature of life – another version of me was being embraced by that enthusiastic girl, the jammy bastard. Perhaps that David Eagle has written a blog about the amazing night of passion that he had with the girl, then philosophised about the not so lucky version of him in an alternate universe who was being embraced, thumped and sworn at by a boozy landlord just metres away from him and the girl. Well, I want that David Eagle to know that if I ever find myself tumbling down a wormhole and meeting him, then I’ll come for him and wipe that self-satisfied smile off his stupid face.

Anyway, my blog post is much more interesting than his. Let’s be honest, would you rather read about me being pummelled by a garish landlord, or hear about me having sex? If you answered positively to the second option then this website is probably not really tailored to you, but I promise you that the next time I have sex (I may be being tragically optimistic) I will tell you all about it in great detail. Any volunteers? You get to be written about in a blog, which I’m sure must be a turn-on for lots of women.

Meanwhile, back in this universe, I am still being thumped by the landlord. Of course, I am just letting this happen, even though he is thumping me quite hard and it is hurting a bit. For some reason I hold the perplexing notion that it would seem impolite of me to say anything. I, like many of us, am far too self-conscious and socially awkward to challenge this kind of behaviour. A man is repeatedly hitting me, yet it is me who feels as if I’d be crossing some line by objecting to this. I will just continue to stand here and be thumped in the back until he either gets bored or I pass out, although, this assumes that me passing out would be enough of a prompt for him to stop. I might be lying in a crumpled heap on the floor, yet this man will still be resolutely thumping me, and as long as he does it with a smile on his face then my friends will be too polite and socially awkward to say anything.

I considered thumping him back. Perhaps this would cause him to realise that being repeatedly thumped in the back wasn’t particularly pleasant, but knowing my luck he’d enjoy it and see it as an indication of my endorsement of this activity, and, encouraged by my participation, start thumping me harder. So I just stood there and let the man thump me and call me a clever cunt, while all the evidence to support that statement was being refuted, given that I was seemingly willingly being assaulted.

I think the girl must have walked off at this point. It is very unlikely that anything would have happened, but there might have been some interest, but she would have no doubt been perturbed by the fact that I was broadly smiling, seemingly enjoying myself, as a man was beating me, shouting what might have appeared a request for me to engage in sexual exploits with him.

“Fuck me!” he shouted. And, to be honest, I am so terribly British and polite that, if that’s what he actually wanted, I’d probably oblige; just out of politeness, you understand. I may find it embarrassingly difficult to procure the requisite erection for the task, but my upper lip would be fixedly stiff. But that’s just so quintessentially British, isn’t it? Having sexual intercourse with a man out of mere politeness.

Then I had a master plan. I explained that I was only one of the members of the group, and that the other two award winners were standing right next to him. I’d just thrown the affectionate dog a bone, and he immediately went for it. Instantly, I was unhanded, as I slumped away to the toilet, I heard him grab one of the other two, then the thumping and the swearing routine was re-established. I felt a little guilty, but I’m sure they would have done the same if they were me. In fact I know they would, because as I entered the toilet, I could here Sean pointing out Michael.

Oh well, I might have failed to bag the girl, but at least I shook off the landlord, which admittedly does sound like quite a dodgy sentence, but you know what I mean.

After a couple of minutes I went to the toilet door and had a listen to hear whether it might be safe to re-enter. It turned out that it would probably be safe, given that the landlord had now turned his attention to someone else, and was loudly engaging in a passionate racist rant. We decided that this was an opportune time to leave. We left the pub, completely unnoticed, while the sounds of the landlord’s voluble bigoted drunken diatribe reverberated in our ears.

Well, I’ve done it again: I’ve written nearly 2000 words and I haven’t begun to tell you the story I originally intended to tell. Given that I’m attempting to do this blogging lark on a daily basis, I think it might be prudent to stop here, and tell that story tomorrow. Until then, thanks for reading.

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Today’s blog post contains swearing.

Download the audio version of this blog post here

Hello, happy new year, and welcome to David’s Daily Digital Dollop. This is dollop one of hopefully 365 consecutive daily dollops, I.E. blog posts and podcasts.

My plan is to generate new content on a daily basis, in a bid to make me more productive, get more people to my website, and create lots of ideas that I can potentially use for standup comedy and other projects.

If you’re listening to the audio podcast version of this blog, then you just heard an introductory jingle from a children’s keyboard, myself and my eleven year old niece Lucy. If you’re not listening to the podcast then feel free to imagine your own jingle now, before reading on.

Lucy came over during Christmas and I got her to record some jingles, in the hope that having a child’s voice on the podcast might endear me to you. Or perhaps you feel that I’ve roped her into child labour, and that, within the first few seconds/sentences of this podcast/blog, I’ve already demonstrated that I am clearly the type of person who is happy to exploit children for my own gain. In fairness though, she sounds like she’s enjoying herself, although, I suppose I could have just beaten her until she pretended to sound happy. But I didn’t, obviously, before you start thinking of me as the Joe Jackson of the blogging world. So we are just two minutes into this podcast, or two paragraphs into this blog if you’re reading, and I’ve already made a joke about child-beating. Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a regularly occurring subject; maybe just once every other month.

However, getting her to record jingles for this blog has created a worrying problem. Lucy was excited about hearing her jingle on my podcast, and wanted to know where she could find it so that she could listen and share it with her friends. This prospect made me a bit anxious, as much of the content probably wouldn’t be suitable for young ears. Tomorrow’s dollop contains the words “fucking clever cunt”, and that’s not the kind of language I think her parents would want their eleven-year-old child to hear. If only she was twelve, then this obviously wouldn’t be an issue.

I’ve decided that in order to circumvent the potential awkwardness of her listening to such profanity, I will have to create another daily blog which is child friendly. I can then put her jingle at the start, and then talk about things that are more appropriate to children. Lucy tends to watch video blogs on Youtube with teenage girls trying on clothes and talking about teenage things. This is probably going to be an even more taxing project than the adult blog, but it’s the only way I can think of to combat the issue of a load of eleven-year-olds listening to the actual blog post with its inappropriate content. So, I need your help urgently. If you can put me in touch with a teenage girl to try on some clothes for me in front of a video camera then I’d be very grateful. Ah, I’ve just realised that this creates a whole new set of issues. Oh dear, what a bind I’ve got myself in.

I am fascinated about where this daily blog might take me (to prison, if I keep on this thread), how I’ll feel about it in 365 days time. Perhaps I’ll be depressed, having been unable to think of anything interesting to talk about for the last three hundred days, aware that it is completely irrelevant anyway as there is no longer anyone bothering to read or listen. Or maybe I’ll relish the notion of recording something on a daily basis, and the blogs will almost just create themselves based on the multitude of comments from readers and listeners. The only way to find out is to do it. Who knows what subjects will be breached, what exciting avenues will be entered, how many blind alleys we’ll go down, how many eleven-year-olds’ parents I will anger.

I have vacillated about whether a daily blog would be a good idea or not. My reasons against doing it were that I thought it might be quite egotistical to consider that people would have the time or inclination to read and listen to what I have to say on a daily basis. I’ve never felt compelled to rhapsodise about the ephemeral and inconsequential trivialities of my daily life on Facebook or Twitter (as so many others seem to enjoy doing), yet now I am choosing to go to the other extreme, writing a few hundred words a day. Do I really think people will read this? I don’t know.

I’ve installed some stats facilities on my website so I’ll be able to know how many people are reading and listening. But I know that I am quite stubborn when it comes to things like this, and even if I soon realise that there is literally no one accessing these blogs, I’ll still keep churning them out, day after day, with a bewilderingly depressing intransigence. But let’s not get all negative at this early stage; you never know, I might end up with five frequent readers/listeners, which would be incredible and would certainly make it all worthwhile. Or perhaps in 365 days time, I’ll be signing a lucrative deal with the BBC for the rights to create a Tv serialisation of this blog. But, one day at a time, my friends. There’s a blog post with the words “fucking cunt” in it to enjoy tomorrow, so that’s something to look forward to, isn’t it? I know how to draw the crowds. There won’t be a lot of swearing in these blogs, but this particular story does require the use of those words, so I’m sorry if that offends you.

“I was really enjoying the casual jokes about child abuse David, but then you had to go and spoil it with the bad language.” That’s probably what my dad will say to me on the phone later today. He does read my blog now and again, which I find quite disconcerting, but perhaps even a parent’s love isn’t strong enough to endure 365 consecutive daily blog posts.

Right, I best be off. I need to put on my dress, pretend to be a teenage girl, create my first child friendly blog about fassion, and send the link to Lucy and her friends. What could possibly go wrong?

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It’s the last Young’uns Podcast of the year, and the last in the current series until April 2016. So, in this podcast we are clearing out all our old stock, I.E. the remaining gig clips that are still lurking on the computer that have yet to be played, It’s very much the bargain basement equivalent of a podcast, but in a good way, hopefully.

David dons his dog collar to become the Reverend Eagle in order to convey a spiritual message for the new year. Plus, there’s some faeces based banter, conspiracy theories, and we discuss South American cuisine.

Download it here

Happy new year.

Hark, hark, good news, the Christmas Young’uns Podcast is here! Lots of music and clips from our Christmas tour, a Christmas quiz in which we ask you to identify the TV sitcom from the Young’uns’ musical clues. And we invade a train with 300 of our friends to sing Christmas songs, led by the folk group Scuppered.

Download it here

Merry Christmas!